Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The Times, the Post, and Hofstra

The name “Crystal Mangum” only appeared on the news pages of the New York Times after Mangum published her “memoir.” Carrying its policy of not naming sexual assault accusers to an absurdist extreme, the Times refused to use Mangum’s name when reporting on Attorney General Cooper’s announcement that Mangum’s myriad, mutually contradictory claims were wholly false and without any evidence.

While the Times made coverage of an alleged rape hundreds of miles away a priority (more than 100 articles), it has devoted scant attention to an equally spectacular claim of sexual assault just outside of New York City. (Doubtless the fact that the suspects in the Hofstra case were non-white had nothing to do with the Times’ editorial judgment.)

In the one non-AP article the Times thus far has seen fit to run (on the dismissal of the charges), reporter Anahad O’Connor did not reveal the name of the false accuser, Danmell Ndonye, while he did mention the names and ages of the four people Ndonye had falsely accused.

I e-mailed O’Connor to ask about his rationale for this decision; he did not reply. But he did reply, through the Times automated e-mail system, to a DIW reader. His explanation: “The reason the article did not contain the accuser’s name is really quite simple. [Note in the e-mail, O’Connor still declines to use Ndonye’s name.] At the time the article was published, the authorities had yet to release it. It only came out at a later time. If you’re upset, you should direct your outrage at the district attorney’s office.

This explanation of what passes for Times journalism is an intriguing one. Perhaps the Times should change its motto from “All the News That’s Fit to Print” to “All the News Government Officials Have Seen Fit to Supply.” The latter motto certainly would have covered Duff Wilson’s role as a de facto stenographer for Mike Nifong during the lacrosse case.

In any event, O’Connor’s explanation is simply untrue. On the same day that the Times left its readers ignorant, the New York Post reportedNdonye’s name. Perhaps, on sexual assault cases, the Post understands that newspapers must do more than simply copy down what the authorities say.

18 comments:

There is always the possibility that The New York Times is well aware of what young women are being taught in those dorm meetings about how to take down privileged young males. After all, The Times must have learned something from the 'Take Back The Night' programming at Duke.

Hofstra has the same 'Take Back The Night' program as Duke however the web links at Hofstra are dead(of course). They did have a meeting in November 2007 that looks identical to the Duke meetings.

Take Back the NightMonday, November 5, 20077:30 PMMack Student Center, GreenhouseSexual Assault Speak-OutFree DinnerSponsored by Womyn of Action

http://tinyurl.com/nx5vdn

We will eventually learn what these young women are taught in those indoctrination sessions and there will be many who feel such news...is not fit to print.::GP

"While the Times made coverage of an alleged rape hundreds of miles away a priority (more than 100 articles), it has devoted scant attention to an equally spectacular claim of sexual assault just outside of New York City."*************************

"...The strength of Marxist-Leninist theory is that it gives the party the ability in any situation to understand the inner connections of the events around it, to see the course events will take, and recognize not only how and in which directions events are going, but also how and in which direction they must develop in the future..."

"...Lenin and Stalin have always given great attention to the development of propaganda...They have stressed the organizing and mobilizing role of the ideas of the Bolshevist party in the fight for the victory of the proletarian revolution and the building of communism."

So in the context of presenting how and in which direction events MUST develop, O'Connor is acting more like a Stalinist.

The Times' naming of the four victims, and its refusal to name the person they likely regard as more a victim than a criminal false rape accuser, is nothing more than a sorry vestige of radical feminism that purports to empower women by pretending they are powerless. It is yet one more example of a wrongheaded, politicized policy that treats the falsely accused as unfortunate but necessary collateral damage, flotsam really, in "the more important" war on rape.

It seems that agents for the New York Times would rather lie AND admit that they'd been scooped by the New York Post rather than fess up to politically correct thinking. Well, that's a start. If they believe that they need to lie about their PC narrative to keep it hidden, then we've made some progress.

********************

MEANWHILE BACK IN DURHAM ...

There's been another alleged mugging on the Duke campus. This was Dean Sue Wasiolek's response as reported by the Chronicle:

"It is currently unclear whether the student was alone at the time, though it is likely the student was, said Sue Wasiolek, dean of students and assistant vice president for student affairs. She added that she is uncertain whether DUPD will be increasing patrols in the area as a result of Tuesday's incident. 'It's difficult to speculate if anything like this could be prevented,' she said. 'The one option that you can keep in mind is to try not to find ourselves isolated in any particular area on campus.'"

There is so much wrong in the short statement that I wonder how this person can keep a job as a spokesperson for Duke University. MOO! Gregory

In Hitchcock's film "Foreign Correspondent", the main character meets the newspaper's foreign correspondent in London. That man is quite proud of the fact that he gets away with simply forwarding the government's press releases to the paper, without doing any actual digging. Perhaps O'Connor comes from that school of reporting?

Perhaps my memory is faulty but was not the NYT more than excited to expose the identity of the Central Park Jogger in their pages? As I recall, their role in that controversy was very involved. Perhaps someone here could clarify.

Someone in this country is going to have to interface with reality and soon. It just cannot go on in this way. The inability of the Times to understand the world is making it a newspaper of little or no consequence in the way that the paper would like to be thought and of great consequence in terms of ineffective nonsense. It is as if one has to read around this great covering up past the corners of the paper, and yes, the World Trade Center is gone . . . finally, and after a second attack. Is the Times with all its supposed intellectual superiority aware of this fact? The Duke lacrosse incident was a lynching, and Hofstra . . . well, Hofstra seems to have been a lie from start to fininsh . . . , but I wouldn't know it from the Times.

As a former newspaper reporter, once again I am sorely disappointed by the policy of the New York Times. To shield the name of a law-breaker who makes a false complaint of rape or sexual assault, while publishing the names AND PHOTOGRAPHS of the falsely accused suspects is unconscionable.

At least the District Attorney who has the case is prosecuting the young woman who made the false accusations.

And at least other newspapers have published her name and, in one case, her photo.

The DA in the Hofstra case is not going to charge the false accuser with a crime and instead require she get therapy and do community service. This because the DA, Katheen Rice, who reportedly curries favor with the female voters, says it because to charge her would keep real rape victims from reporting the crime.

"what young women are being taught in those dorm meetings about how to take down privileged young males..Hofstra has the same 'Take Back The Night' program as Duke however the web links at Hofstra are dead(of course). "

Would it be possible to sue the school for this, ie participatory or contributory involvement, incitement, indoctrination and creating the atmosphere of hate? Current thought-crimes (aka "hate-crime") legislation might also be used for this.

This Gang88/Feminist/Marxist lunacy does not end until the schools have been sued for $100M, by the wrongly accused.

Blog Awards

About Me

I am from Higgins Beach, in Scarborough, Maine, six miles south of Portland. After spending five years as track announcer at Scarborough Downs, I left to study fulltime in graduate school, where my advisor was Akira Iriye. I have a B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard, and an M.A. from the University of Chicago. At Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, I teach classes in 20th century US political, constitutional, and diplomatic history; in 2007-8, I was Fulbright Distinguished Chair for the Humanities at Tel Aviv University.

Book

Comments Policy

(1) Comments are moderated, but with the lightest of touches, to exclude only off-topic comments or obviously racist or similar remarks.

(2) My clearing a comment implies neither that I agree nor that I disagree with the comment. My opinion is expressed in my words and my words only. Since this blog has more than 1500 posts, and since I at least occasionally comment myself, the blog provides more than enough material for readers to discern my opinions.

(3) If a reader finds an offensive comment, I urge the reader to e-mail me; if the comment is offensive, I will gladly delete it.

(4) Commenters who either misrepresent their identity or who engage in obvious troll behavior will not have their comments cleared. Troll-like behavior includes, but is not limited to: repeatedly linking to off-topic sites; repeatedly asking questions that already have been answered; offering unsubstantiated remarks whose sole purpose appears to be inflaming other commenters.

"From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . , Taylor and Johnson have made a gripping contribution to the literature of the wrongly accused. They remind us of the importance of constitutional checks on prosecutorial abuse. And they emphasize the lesson that Duke callously advised its own students to ignore: if you’re unjustly suspected of any crime, immediately call the best lawyer you can afford."--Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times Book Review